Over a few chilly days I bodged together a new bird table to
replace the battered rustic effort that had reached the end of its days serving
the birds of the field and garden. Kicking a flat space through the snow I set
up the none-too-bad service station and re-hung the peanuts and seed feeders.
Slowly the birds checked out the unfamiliar platform and we were back in
business. This year I had promised myself to set up a niger seed tube
to try to attract our first goldfinches or bruise- eyed greenfinches. But the
slap happy winds of winter had other ideas, overnight, bullying the table to
the floor and breaking the top in half. Hmm back to the workshop.
When the old table had been in business we were treated to
the occasional visit from a Great spotted woodpecker. It has been long known
that the woodpecker has a modified skull to absorb the shock of its habitual
hammering. The hammering is actually a
form of communication and this can be tested when out in the woods. Choose a
pair of dry sticks and knock them together to imitate the rapping of the
woodpecker just heard and invariably they will come closer to investigate this
possible mate. The drumming tempo of the Great spotted is steady in contrast to
the high rapid staccato of the Lesser spotted woodpecker. The Lesser spotted
species is the smallest European woodpecker and is generally confined to the
southern half of Britain.
The Green woodpecker rarely drums and by the latter part of the summer all is
quiet from all three species.
All three woodpeckers have a distinctive slow and deep
undulating flight. The flight pattern is caused by the intermittent flap of the
wings followed by a glide, then the lift of another flap and a glide. Commonly
they nest in tree holes which they excavate. Artificial nests can be created
and those that are successful have cavities that have been filled with woody
matter so the birds can still excavate the nest space. The Green woodpecker
lays its brood earlier than its relatives, laying slightly more eggs per
clutch, upwards of 7, though not all will survive to fledge.
Woodpeckers have a very long tongue which is tucked away in
a coil inside the head. The Wryneck, a distant relative of the three British
woodpeckers has a tongue 5 times the length of its beak. The Wryneck is a summer
visitor to the far south of the UK but sadly is still in decline and is a very
rare sight indeed. Our Great spotted woodpecker is conversely on the rise.
Dutch elm disease assisted their resurgence and their omnivorous diet makes
them more adaptable than other more fussy creatures. They like our peanut
feeders which seem to appeal as they look a little like their natural pine
kernel foods. Woodpeckers have long been considered pests for their timber
tapping habits whether boat building oaks or telegraph poles. In fact in
Elizabethan times an Act was passed to control ‘ noyfull fowls and vermin’ ,
what John Clare called ‘Nature’s carpenters’.
In that case I had better get our table fixed to save the neighbourhood
trees!
It has been a wet and grim winter, a recent brave and short cycle tour of the narrow
lanes east of Ellesmere turned into a trial of man and boy against the
elements. Fields have been and remain inundated. Crops lost and agricultural
schedules gone haywire have made for a trying time, and tough times to
come. We snatched a solitary day
sledging and then woke to find the white stuff washed away so rapidly that
flooding could be the only result. But
in all this soaking misery the roadside clumps of snowdrop hold out a promise
of better times to come, let them arrive soon!
Happy wildlife spotting,
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